Re: Linux is not for consumers!
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:15:24 -0700
"s. keeling" <keeling@spots.ab.ca> wrote:
> > This sounds like an excuse for programmers not to document their
> > programs.
>
> Programmers need no excuse for this. They know how it works. If you
> think it needs documentation, go ahead and write it.
Aren't you missing the point that you need to understand it before you can
document it, and that in many cases understanding does not come without
documentation.
> If I were being paid to do this kind of thing, my boss might have a
> more convincing argument as to why I should document my work.
> However, for something I'm giving away for nothing, there's no such
> obligation that I can see.
Obligation? What about a sense of pride in having done something well?
Of course, if you're just writing a program for your own personal use, and
you allow others to use it freely if they can understand it, without any
involvement from you, fine, but that's not the kind of system that the
envisaged consumers can cope with. And I'm not convinced that that really
is the underlying philosophy of Linux, which seems to be implicit in what
you say.
If you're a developer, your attitude perhaps goes some way to explain why
Linux is not for consumers.
- Richard.
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